#and momentum building was the first
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
#hoping this will be the cure for cancer that finally breaks that pesky 4th wall#the 4th cure perhaps#yes the first 3 cannot be patented#the 4th? debatable but I can try#no doubt the 4th is by far the most allopathic and western possible approach#i'll patent what i will patent and it's just likely competitors can patent something functionally identical#but i'd rather create this new industry and build momentum there#not even the chatbots see the application of the laws of physics they agree are at work behind my prototype design
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
a random building momentum fact: the first staff of Juniper House were HEAVILY and EXTENSIVELY interviewed to be certain they could be trusted to keep the secret.
it took several years for any of the staff they hired to figure out that the secret they were keeping was that the conlon-jacobses were immortal, and not that spot & david were gay.
#newsies#building momentum au#juniper house features another reincarnated newsie!#just not someone from their first life ;)
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
So it's taken me a ridiculous amount of time to attempt this course that should have been completed in 12 weeks. And I've only just finally submitted the assessment of my second unit (2 of 4). I did actually submit it initially on schedule but I was asked to add some info. And then after doing that was asked to add yet more info to another question! Ma'am!!
Anyway. This is not really anything to be proud of (to most anyway) but I am proud. I have attempted to get back to work on this course for a HOT minute. And each time I have sat down or tried to sit down to work on it I have ultimately failed and done, nothing.
Today, I actually REMEMBERED that my tutor had given today as a deadline to add this additional info as it was only a small amount required. Thankfully I remembered coz I had no reminders set, nor did I note it anywhere.
But, after having less than three hours sleep due to my period crippling me late into the night and a contractor turning up first thing to work on my en suite (which he didnt finish til about 1), and then - when I was finally thinking about decompressing in my space alone for a grip before approaching this task - I had to take my ma to the doctor on a last minute urgent thing.
I handled both disruptions incredibly well. Brought my ma home and went out to cop me some energy drinks and a couple snacks coz I'm still trying this maintaining glucose levels thing and I knew I needed to work.
I very almost started gaming when I got back in coz I cant stand going from external thing to focused thing without a transitional period. But I knew I was running the risk of getting sucked in.
Instead, I kept in my ear buds, danced around, started on my energy drink (and a cheeky glass of moscato) sat down to work - laptop tried to beef me so I got myself prepared for the task I had to approach while it sorted itself out. Got distracted by a linkedin email and found myself on the app job searching. Yes, productive. No, not conducive to the matter at hand.
Hennyway, I managed to shift my focus back to the assignment. Did one part and was gonna take a one song break (coz pressure from Encanto came on shuffle and I'm not gonna work through that coz like I NEEDS to belt) but ended up pausing it while I prepared the second part. Then ended up just completing the second part and submitting and now I'm done.
And sure, all in all, it was about ten to fifteen mins of work. And yeah, it's a relatively minor thing in the grand scheme of things. But still! I did something and focused when I intended to and stopped myself getting distracted and stayed on task.
I will add that part of what helped the transition was D asking me if I'd submitted my poems for the competition yet just before I headed to the dr. [As established, deciding to work on my poetry was that THING I needed to get excited and motivated] It set me in a space where I was wanting to be productive. I sent him a few poems for his insight. He doesn't do poetry and all that so it was an odd choice but he is also not afraid to be critical and won't just tell me everything is great (also he gave v positive feedback to the poem which is like... the crux of me and the manuscript I'm gonna put together so omfg YES)
Long long long ass post coz I'm typing on my surface and not as limited as when I'm on mobile, plus typing speed lord jesus.
Anyway, I'm proud of myself. And even tho D didn't provide any overt or particularly hands-on application of accountability/responsibility, he did put my attention on a worthy task, and the best one he could've to kick me into gear.
#mine#Good things are coming#Even if I'm only productive for like an hour or two a day to start#I can do a LOT in a short time#So I'm excited for how this momentum will build#First monday I've had in forever where i've actually got off to an effective start.#So YAY#Also I'm pretty sure I've figured out which three poems I'm going to submit so that's awesome#But I would like to try to write something new as two are from 2020 and one is from 21#So like... Yeah.#cc rambles
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
If Bellara really is a mage then it might make more sense for me to play a rogue both for the character I'm building in my brain and also to balance out the party but. I don't really wanna 😭
#based on what they said about how momentum works for rogues in this game im worried i wont be able to play a rogue well#like i have a slow reaction speed lol. if a big part of the rogues abilities revolves around being able to dodge attacks i might be screwed#i was really hoping to play either a mage or a warrior. and i guess i could still play a warrior#but like im really interested in the veil jumper faction#thats a big reason im trying to plan my build to be complementary to bellara bc i figure ill want to have her in my party a lot#(also thinking i might romance her the first time around but im still undecided bc all the women are so cool)#and after seeing the rogue specializations and us all assuming she was gonna be a veil ranger i was like#okay cool since shes got that down i can be something different#but if shes NOT a veil ranger rogue then i feel like it would make the most sense for my character to be a veil ranger rogue#if im really interested in leaning into the veil jumper stuff for my rook#hhhhhh#i know the game isnt coming out until fall so theres still plenty of time to think on this stuff#but uh i ALSO still need to do my second playthrough of inquisition (and first playthrough of trespasser) before it comes out#so im trying to plan out what i want to do with my dav character so i can decide what i want to do with my dai character first#in order to not make the playthroughs feel too repetitive#i was thinking qunari warrior inquisitor but if im not gonna be doing an (elf) mage rook then#maybe ill do a qunari mage inquisitor instead? dammit i JUST got excited about the champion specialization tho...#i guess its still technically there in dav but. elf champion warrior just doesnt feel as right as it does for qunari tbh#and i feel like an elf would still make the most sense with the veil jumpers :/#ughh maybe i go back to my first plan of doing an elf necromancer in inquisition and a qunari in veilguard?#but what faction would i choose 😭#rambling
0 notes
Text
so many things to do in the next 2 hours but for now I relish the moment
#im going back to substituting for the first time this school year tomorrow!! im working w pk-2nd grade but! i am filling in for a TA so#hopefully all will be well.... 👁️👁️🍷#the lower schools scare me way more than mid and high school haha#but so anyways. i have to watch the 23-24 training modules tonight + steam my clothes for tomorrow + pack a lunch and maybe make a little#coffee too! i also bought a mini planner so i can keep track of my habits.. the depression really owned me last year#so i think having a physical record of doing things will help build the momentum to do them more often!!#but for now.. i am just very happy abt my christmas presents to myself + my back hurts so! i will relax and enjoy the moment :]#sriracha.txt
1 note
·
View note
Text
NH is going to be a battleground state this year so i really can't quite wrap my head around the fact that the DNC is that willing to isolate and punish its voter base in the state for the actions of its republican secretary of state is cah-razy. go ahead, dnc, lose your moderate voters interest, the progressives here arent any more enthused about voting biden either! its funniest to me that this is the candidate they want to stake nh's compliance on. we're so stubborn. this is not going to be winning any hearts or minds. in an ideal world it would lead the poli. orgs to start to rally around ground and local politics more (esp. since our gov. is up for grabs and i can NOT handle another four years under that bozo) and frankly i think that would be a better use of our time but everyone wants to go straight to the top instead -.-
#i mean nh needs fitn primary for our economy many small businesses are bouyed for the middle years by the build up to primary day#but the idea that momentum is everything is clearly wrong otherwise we would not have had biden for president four years ago...#nh has on the book as a state law that it will be first in the nation primary and we've had a nice little agreement with the first caucus
0 notes
Text
Scenarios I am immediately preparing for:
1) Gender markers on my docs being reverted
2) Shadow ban of trans HRT (likely still accessible, but severely restricted for good chunks of the trans population - see FL, for example)
3) Tariffs making everything super expensive
4) Loss of same-sex marriage rights
5) Online presence as a trans person criminalized as pornographic
6) Disruption of supply chains, especially food
7) Being barred from federal work as a trans person
I expect the incoming admin to be making considerable progress on these outcomes within the first year. "Progress" does not necessarily mean "comes to pass"; it's too soon to know what the momentum and obstacles will be like for Project 2025 initiatives.
I'm not here to scaremonger, but it's incredibly important to be prudent as a trans person right now and start prepping for how to mitigate damage to yourself and how to support your community.
Your own lists of concerns will vary. But I suggest writing down your fears as specific as possible, taking a deep breath, then seeing how best you can plan for each.
There will be paperwork, there will be sacrifices, but also remember that building bonds with your community and taking care of yourself are also vitally important right now.
646 notes
·
View notes
Text
Joker 2 undershot even Morbius's opening weekend numbers domestically. It is, however, doing better internationally. It's going to need to hope those international sales can carry it to break-even because the domestic numbers aren't doing it.
So, unfortunately for the Joker, it was Morbin' Time this weekend. However, the Joker may get the last laugh.
I am enthralled by the question of what the fuck happened here.
I don't really care about the Joker sequel. I didn't see the first movie. These films aren't for me.
And from everything I've heard coming out of word-of-mouth, I can see why audiences left the movie with a sour taste in their mouths. It has a D rating on Cinemascore, below even Morbius's C+, and it sounds like there's good reasons for that.
But dissatisfied audiences didn't crash the movie. The effects of word-of-mouth will only come into play in the weeks to follow. This movie was dead on arrival. These aren't "Movie was bad and sales plummeted" numbers. These are "Nobody wanted this movie" numbers. An opening this weak represents a failure of the hype train to adequately build momentum leading into release.
Keeping in mind that the original Joker film broke the billion-dollar boundary, the fact that its sequel is now in competition with Morbius of all things is appalling. How does its sequel crash this hard? Why didn't the fans who carried Joker 1 to a billion turn out for Joker 2? What happened here?
I am sincerely more interested in the circumstances of why Joker 2 failed than I've ever been in a Joker film.
829 notes
·
View notes
Note
Thinking more about building momentum (because what else am I going to do at 12:33 AM). When did Spot start experimenting with their gender presentation?
Almost immediately!
Jack and then Race died, and then Spot and David and Les and Niamh left the village, and then Spot said "I'm trying something new" and grew her hair out and started wearing dresses.
The other three more or less shrugged and went 'well. everything else in our life is so weird this is basically nothing' and started calling her Saoirse in front of people.
By the time they separate and David & Spot set sail, she's actually switched back and forth a few times. She suggested to David that he try it out in the early 18th century and that led to the very first iteration of their ongoing "hey have you considered Additional Genders for funsies" "no in fact i don't even want the one i was given to begin with" argument <3
#the language involved the first time was not even a bit like that but the principle was the same#building momentum au#i love love love thinking abt gender in this au
3 notes
·
View notes
Note
Can you offer any advice for avoiding hoarding when part of the problem is that trying to deal with the clutter and garbage and dirt causes paralyzing anxiety? I want my house to be clean and cluttered because it's stuff I like, but instead it's full of trash and stuff that had a place but doesn't seem to fit back in it after being used.
I can absolutely offer advice about that.
Short TL;DR:
Select the room you want to clean and make a map of it.
Divide the room into small segments like "top of desk" or "cabinet under sink" or even "half of junk drawer." SMALL segments.
Designate bags "trash," "donate," and "consider later."
Schedule a time to work on cleaning each segment, don't just assume "i'll do it next week." Write down an assigned day for each area.
Go into your target area and sort things into those bags.
Optionally, create a bag for memento items to put into a specific memento box/book.
Take bags out of the space when they are full to make more room to work and to see progress.
Do the section for the day and stop. Don't get overwhelmed by a ton of stuff, stop when you've done what you planned for the day (unless you've got good momentum built up and continuing will energize you.)
Long TL;DR:
Go someplace where you are not looking at the mess. You want to draw a map of the room, but you do not want to be in the room. Work one room at a time.
Divide the area you want to clean into very small spaces. You aren't cleaning an entire desk, you are cleaning one drawer of a desk.
Take three containers with you for each section: one trash bag, one donation bag, and one bag of stuff to consider later.
Plan out time to work on the space. Don't say "I'll do the whole thing this weekend" or "I'll get to it after the holidays," sit down and write out a schedule. There's a version of this called 40 bags in 40 days that people do for lent (that was the version of this i first found and followed the first time i did it), but you could do it in ten days, or a hundred, just try to stick to working on each segment on the day it's scheduled.
In each space, keep the stuff that's obviously meant to go there in that space, so if you're cleaning a desk drawer and it has a stapler in it, the stapler can stay there but if the staples and paper clips and rubber bands are a mess put that stuff into the "consider later" bin. Same thing with papers; if you've got a bunch of papers and you may need to keep some and may need to trash some, put them in the "consider later"
THERE IS AN OPTIONAL BIN FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO HANG ON TO A MILLION MEMENTOS AND CONCERT TICKETS AND SUCH. I make them by getting gallon freezer bags and filling them up with business cards and concert programs and scraps of wrapping paper and birthday cards. This isn't quite "consider later" because it's probably stuff you know you want to keep, this is "I don't have a home for this thing right now but it's not trash" so this is a temporary home for that category.
Remove stuff from the space as you work. As you fill up a bag of trash or consider later or donate, take it out of the space so you aren't looking at it and you can see the progress you're making on the space.
Do each section as you come to it on your schedule and then call it quits. If you cleaned out the counter next to the sink and that was your area for the day, you don't have to worry about the area under the sink unless you have the energy and enthusiasm for it.
Philosophical musing about why this works
The reason this kind of plan works (for me) is by pre-managing several things. You know you're working with a limited area, you know what you're going to do with the stuff you find in that area (put it in one of your bags or leave it where it is if it belongs in that area), you're working on a limited time so this can't stretch out forever it's just a little chunk, you're thinking about the space as you build your plan so you're visualizing the anxiety inducing thing outside of the space that actually gives you the anxiety which hopefully allows you to detach slightly from the anxiety, and you're getting your steps lined up ahead of time so there's no muddle of "what do i do now, how do I get started" - you get started by grabbing your bags and you go to that day's scheduled section.
The whole thing is constructed to prevent you from getting overwhelmed.
I used to try to clean my room as a kid and I would find something that needed to get put away but I didn't know where it went so I'd spend a bunch of time trying to make a space for it and I'd end up getting lost in the weeds of imagining how I'd use the item and if the new place for it was accessible, and oh look at the items that I found in this other place where I was going to put this item and this method cuts off all of that. Where I am putting the item is in the bag, where it is going is the "consider later" pile and when I've cleared out most of the space I can consider where things go when I've gathered all the uncertain things into one place instead of continually unearthing them and disrupting the process of going through stuff.
What it means to Consider Later
The reason you're working room by room is because you should be isolating the consider later pile by room. If you're cleaning out the bedroom you may end up with stuff that belongs in the kitchen or the office, but you'll end up with a lot of stuff that belongs in the bedroom. When you've worked through all your segments, you can sort the consider later pile and now that you have all the objects together, you can consider whether some of them belong together in a space in the room.
For instance, when I first did this there were a lot of books that needed to go on bookshelves, but my bookshelves weren't accessible in the early parts of the process. So books from the floor and the bed and the nightstand went into the consider later pile and after the whole floor was clear and there was no trash on my desk and all the books I was donating had been pulled from my bookshelves, I was able to organize all of my books at once instead of stumbling across a book every four minutes and trying to shelve it.
That's what spawned the memento bags for me; there was a ton of stuff in my consider later bags that didn't precisely have a place but weren't trash and needed a place made for them. If I'd struggled to find where each item went as I cleaned it would have completely stalled me out.
I kept finding yarn as I went but I didn't have a dedicated yarn spot, so I just put yarn in the consider later pile and at the end I found a basket for it and put it on a shelf in the closet that had been cleared out when I'd donated old clothes. If I had tried to find a spot for the yarn before donating the clothes, I would have had to move it once the better spot opened up, so saving all the consider later stuff for later saved me from having to move stuff several times.
If you're in a small space or if you're living with people and you can't make a pile of stuff in another room for two weeks, at the very least remove the trash and donation bags as you go and designate an area for your consider later pile; maybe a laundry basket or something similar so that you can keep it mobile as you clean.
It's kind of like moving in to a new space. When you move in to an empty room, you have all your stuff in boxes and you need to figure out where it goes and that can take a while, but it's sometimes easier to find a place to put things in a new environment than it is to put things back "where they belong" because maybe you've added a dozen skeins to your collection and they don't belong in the little yarn bag anymore.
What to trash, what to donate, and what to consider later
Trash should be immediately obvious as trash. Anything that is trash goes in the trash bag right away.
If you find yourself thinking "but I might use this plastic fork that came with my value meal," or "this receipt may be important," put it in the consider later pile and don't think about it right now.
The donate bag should be for stuff that will still be useful for someone, but won't be useful for you. Clothes that you don't like, books you hated and won't re-read, toys you don't want to keep, all of that goes in the donate pile. If you think you might want to keep a piece of clothing but you want to make sure it doesn't fit, don't stop to try it on now just put it in the consider later pile and you can sort it into the donate bag later.
"Consider later" is for anything that requires more than thirty seconds of thought or effort to handle. If you're looking at your desk and you've got a keyboard for your computer on your desk that keyboard is staying there and doesn't need to be considered. If there's an empty takeout cup on your desk, that cup is going in the trash and doesn't need to be considered. If there's a receipt for your computer sitting on your desk, you may want to save that for record-keeping purposes but may not have a place to put it, so that is what you consider later.
Some guidelines on what is or is not trash
You might look at a sturdy plastic cup from a gas station and say "that isn't trash, I could use that, that's still good" but unless you have a specific purpose in mind for it right now, that is trash. If you wouldn't put it in a donation box to be used for some ambiguous future purpose, you don't need to keep it.
If you have a specific purpose in mind, like using an old milk jug to make a watering pitcher for your plants, it may not be trash. But only ONE is not trash; more than that is trash.
If you wouldn't need to have a hard copy of a paper and you have an electronic copy, it is trash. This means receipts for most everyday purchases like groceries and fast food. Don't keep receipts for items past their return period, don't keep receipts for items that you have a digital copy of unless that item cost over $1000.
Nice cardboard boxes (or good glass jars, or sturdy plastic takeout boxes, or cleaned food containers) that you don't have a use for are trash (or recycling, depending on where you live, but still in the trash category).
If you know someone who is specifically looking for an item (like maybe the neighbor kids are asking for cardboard tubes for a science project, or you work with a meal delivery group that could use extra packets of takeout utensils, or you have a friend who is into canning and has asked for jars, or if you make your own soup stock and need containers to put it in, or if you have a friend who is moving and needs lots of good cardboard boxes) then these items don't *have* to be trash but if you are just keeping them in your space and not giving them to people who want them or putting them to use yourself, they are just trash in your space and you should throw them away.
Memory Books/Memento Bags
I make memory books out of the little items i collect into one gallon storage bags. They allow me to hang onto the stuff that I want to keep because it brings me good memories without having a pile of random junk and sometimes without having to keep the item, or having to keep the whole item.
If the thing I want to keep because it brings me good memories is bulky, perhaps I can take a put a picture of that item to put in the book. If it is a worn out shirt, perhaps I can cut a patch off the shirt to put it in the book. If it is a card, perhaps I can cut out just the front of the card, or I can almost certainly just throw away the envelope and put the card in the book.
If you have things that do *not* fit into the memory book, like costume jewelry or rocks or a weird toy you got out of a coin machine on a really fun family vacation, you can also make a memory box; I have some of these and they've got a bunch of truly random crap in them, but I *like* having the nametag from the four hours that I worked at Denny's, or the keychain from when my mom took me to the morgue training class. It's fine to like these things, and to keep many of them, but you want to keep them someplace that they won't stress you out; that might be a display case for nice things, but it also might be a pretty velvet bag that you periodically pull out of a drawer and sort through like a magpie, or a wooden box that you painted.
You can also be selective about this stuff. You don't need every piece of costume jewelry your grandmother owned; keep the pieces you really like or the ones you have strong memories of or the ones that are very nice or the ones that are in good shape. But look, my mom was a teacher and she had a wide variety of goofy holiday jewelry that she wore in the classroom and I don't need to hang onto that. I don't need the big plastic ghost earrings that won't fit in my plugs, but I'll hang onto the spider brooch. She collected cheap watches - I don't need all of her four dollar watches, I can keep the nice ones, or the one that she got for ten years at her job. Do the same thing with stuffed animals and baby clothes and magazines and children's books. You don't need to keep all of it, and keeping all of it isn't going to help you remember that time more, or remember that person better.
Do you really want to keep it or do you feel obligated?
Youtuber Caroline Winkler (who has some great videos about home organization that I like a lot, in particular "this is why your home is a mess" - with the caveat that she likes closed storage and my ADHD ass loves open storage) has a really great tip on getting rid of stuff that works a LOT better for me than the Marie Kondo "Does this spark joy?" question and it's the Red Wine Test. Instead of asking if an item sparks joy, you ask yourself "If a bottle of red wine spilled on this (or if it was in some other way damaged) how hard would I try to fix it?" If you wouldn't try very hard, or if you would be *relieved* then you can get rid of that item. If one of the Venom mugs I have on the shelf fell down and broke, I wouldn't try hard to fix it. If my cat stuffed animal from when I was a kid tore open, I would immediately be looking for my sewing kit.
.... I should recycle those cheap teal glasses, actually.
Some general tips that may help to get you started that work for me and my ADHD and may work for you and your anxiety:
Start a timer for a short time. You don't have to clean your whole house, you are just going to pick up for five minutes. Then you can stop, and you only have to face a *little* bit of the anxiety.
5-4-3-2-1-go. Don't overthink it, count down quickly and then get up and do something. Keep going in as long a spurt as you can manage without getting too upset, but cutting down on the time for pre-game fretting might help with the anxiety.
Do the smallest amount possible. You don't have to clean this room, you just have to take one dish to the sink. You don't have to do all the dishes, you can just unload part of the top tray of the dishwasher.
Some general tips on trying to keep a space clean:
First, encouragement: It is a lot easier to maintain a clean space than it is to create one.
If you're thinking that something needs to be done and it can take you under five minutes to do it and it's right in front of you, do it. I do this with my dishwasher. It turns out unloading the dishwasher is the main thing that stalls me on dishes and keeps my sink full, so now when I'm waiting for the kettle or letting my tea steep, I unload whatever I can get done in that time. If I have the vacuum out and I did my living room but the hall and the bedroom could use a quick pass too, I vacuum them while I've got the machine in my hand.
Set success traps. Success traps are things that let you fall into succeeding by front-loading the effort (or executive function) of cleaning with planning. Trash collects in your living space? Put a bunch of little trash cans everywhere. Cleaning your bathroom takes extra time because you have to go get glass cleaner and paper towels from another room? Keep a bottle of glass cleaner and a roll of paper towels under the sink. You never sweep because it is a pain in the ass to get the broom out of the broom closet? Hang the broom from a mount in the kitchen. It takes too long to clean the counter because you have to pick up a bunch of makeup brushes and bottles and soap? Put that shit on a tray and now you only have to move one thing to clean the counter.
And for your specific question, with "things never seem to quite fit back where they came from" sounds like you're playing storage tetris, which is when things have a place and it is a *very specific and exact* place that doesn't have a lot of room around it. You may need to think about downsizing for your space, or, more likely, think about more efficient storage. That Caroline Winkler video I linked has some tips on this ("don't store things in a way that will make you angry like putting your common use objects on an out of reach shelf or you'll never put things back because it's hard to put them back" and "maximize your weirdo spaces" speak to your situation, i think) that I've put into use, particularly in my kitchen. It was hard to keep the counter clear because it was hard to put my stand mixer away because the rack for the stand mixer had a wok and a bunch of cast iron pans and a panini press and a chafing dish on it; I put the panini press and the least-used cast iron and the chafing dish and the wok in a more out-of-the way cabinet (because i basically never use them but they're very useful when I need them) and now that shelf has a little grill, my more commonly used cast iron, and my stand mixer so putting away the stand mixer is a lot less effort so my counter stays clear. I wasn't using the top shelf of my dish cabinet for dishes because it's too high up for daily use, but it's perfect for the rice cooker, waffle maker, and food processor that I use less than my dishes but more than my george forman grill.
And anyway, the TL;DR for all of that:
Work a little bit at a time, be nice to yourself, don't keep things that aren't worth keeping, and configure your storage in a way that works for you (by keeping your lifestyle, the way you use things, and how easy it is to put away into account before deciding that's where something lives).
Good luck!
3K notes
·
View notes
Text
Danny Punches a Clown Pt. 4
Previously in Part 3:
“I’m Red Robin, how long have you been in Gotham?”
“That really depends, Red Robin.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“On what?”
“What time it is.” Danny states. Red Robin lets out a concerned sounding chuckle.
“Probably not long then, I take it? It’s almost 3:00 am.”
Danny nods, but on second thought this does little to help him. He doesn’t know what time it was when he got here and considering the new dimension bit he doesn’t know the time difference from his home dimension in the first place.
“Are you hurt?”
Taking stock, Danny knows he isn’t fully recovered from his last fight in his dimension. He got hit with a few blasts that he knows are currently burns and he whacked his head either during the fight, after, or both but the headache is negligible at this point and he is not letting anyone take him to a doctor.
“I’m fine.” Danny hefts the backpack onto his shoulders and looks around. The alley is a dead end, so he’s going to have to get past Red Robin if he wants to leave. Despite all his questions he doesn’t seem to want to hurt him yet, so hopefully they can do this nicely.
“What’s your name?” Red Robin has opened what seems to be a computer on his wrist.
“Danny.”
They look at each other for a moment before Red Robin nods.
“Okay, Danny. Why are you in Gotham?”
Danny shrugs. He is not particularly aware of Gotham and he didn’t have a destination in mind when he was running anyway.
“Is your family here?”
Danny flinches and backs up a step at the mention of family, but Red Robin just puts up his hands again.
“Whoa, it’s okay. I’m sorry. No family, that’s fine.”
Then there are two more figures in the alley, someone in blue and someone in a leather jacket with a red mask covering their whole head jumped from the roofs behind Danny, and he doesn’t want to put his back to Red Robin, but he has seemed pretty nice and these guys are bigger and more of an unknown so he turns quickly to keep his eye on them.
“It’s okay,” Danny can hear from beside him. “This is Nightwing and Red Hood. They’re friends, I work with them.”
Danny backs up to the wall of the alley near Red Robin, able to see everyone, but as he presses back against the wall his backpack presses up against one of the burns and he hisses involuntarily, flinching back forward a little. This is not a good situation to be in, Danny thinks as he looks around. He makes sure his backpack is securely on his shoulders before turning towards Red Robin.
“Sorry.” He mutters before quickly reaching out and grabbing him. He uses the momentum, and a little ghost strength, to toss Red Robin right into the other two and he doesn’t stick around to see what happens. He is running and he can hear footsteps behind him, and he doesn’t know where he is so he does the only thing he can think of.
He turns a corner, and then quickly, before any of them can catch up, walks himself right through the wall of the building to his left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tag List: @that-random-fangirl, @sebas-nights, @whataspectaclebear, @wolf-iz-2000, @bl-webtoonweeb @daydreamsandcrashingwaves @molasses-being-slow @kiana996
#dc x dp#dc x dp crossover#fanfiction#my writing#batman#danny phantom#red robin#tim drake#dc comics#nightwing#red hood#dp x dc
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
How to Remove Mental Blocks:
• Acknowledge your block – Start by recognizing the specific block you’re experiencing. Knowing what’s holding you back, whether it’s fear, self doubt, or overwhelm, is the first step toward overcoming it.
• Reframe negative thoughts – Often, mental blocks come from self-limiting beliefs. Challenge these thoughts by replacing them with positive, empowering ones. Shift your focus from “I can’t” to “What if I can?”
• Break down your goals – Mental blocks often feel overwhelming because of big, vague goals. Break your tasks into smaller, manageable steps to reduce pressure and create momentum with each accomplishment.
• Take intentional breaks – If you’re feeling mentally stuck, sometimes stepping away helps. A break can reset your mind, giving you a fresh perspective and renewed energy.
• Engage in creative activities – Stimulate your mind with activities that allow freedom, like drawing, writing, or brainstorming. Creative outlets can unlock new ideas and help you think outside the box.
• Practice mindfulness and meditation – Techniques like mindfulness, deep breathing, and meditation help clear mental clutter, making it easier to focus and reduce overthinking.
• Visualize success – Picture yourself overcoming your mental block and achieving your goal. Visualization can make your goal feel more tangible, motivating you to push past limitations.
• Challenge perfectionism – Let go of the need for everything to be perfect before you start. Embrace progress over perfection, as aiming for “good enough” can reduce pressure and unlock creativity.
• Take on new experiences – Trying something new can shift your perspective and open your mind to fresh ideas. New experiences stimulate mental flexibility and can help dissolve rigid thought patterns.
• Set boundaries with distractions – Create a space free from distractions to focus on your task. This helps your mind engage deeply, reducing the likelihood of mental blocks.
• Cultivate self-compassion – Be gentle with yourself if things feel difficult. Self-compassion builds resilience, allowing you to face blocks with patience rather than frustration.
• Seek outside perspectives – Talking with a friend or mentor can give you insights and ideas you hadn’t considered. Fresh perspectives can dissolve blocks and inspire new paths forward.
• Focus on the “why” – Reconnect with the purpose behind what you’re doing. A clear sense of purpose can reignite your motivation, helping you push through barriers with renewed focus and intention.
404 notes
·
View notes
Text
goin limp in könig’s arms nsfw
at first he’s a little frightened with the feeling of your already soft body in his large hands going even softer. Unnaturally soft. It was no question he was a large man, and by this point you two had been going a few rounds, so after you begged for his merciless side that only seeped from him on the battlefield, he’d obliged after forcing himself to forget about his personal feelings for your pleasure. Your back seemed to be stuck in an arch, with your hair thrown in different directions where the pillow was supposed to be. It was elsewhere on the floor.
There was a rough grip on your hips as he pulled you down onto his length, keeping his thrusts short and deep with whatever momentum you gave him. It was significantly easier before your eyes rolled back and your hands sought refuge on the headboard behind you, which he has now recognized as pleasure, along with incoherent babbling. You wished you could see the way his thick, toned thighs move back and forth for every single one of his sharp thrusts or hear the heavy german-accented pleasure fall from his lips, but you can’t. Instead, you could feel it. Instead, you could only see darkness or the ceiling through slim vision. Instead, you could faintly hear every time the headboard hit the wall, despite it being hard enough to create dents in the material and rattle the building.
“Kö-König,” you’d attempt, and once your babbling got the least bit coherent (more than just his name of course), he’d grunt back, “Ja Liebe, I’m here.” Even if you didn’t completely understand him all the time yet, you’d come to learn the most important words. You never actually did give him a response though. Just a long, sultry whine.
He chuckled breathlessly at you. Where you two meet, there’s a wet stickiness, one that would feel icky to you if you were mentally present. Everything was red. Ass, cheeks, and both your lips. Your throat would be too, but König just cannot get over how much bigger he is than you, and he has yet to comply because of the thought of it being too hard and genuinely hurting. Even if you had a nonverbal safe code.
But once it seemed your body shut down completely for his use, he couldn’t deny the primal urge to ruin you while he could. He had time to be upset over his lack of self control later. One hand of his could almost wrap under both knees, but he uses two anyway, effectively rolling you upwards and folding you in half. He slid himself back in once up on his haunches.
Your knees were now located at your breasts with his arms encasing you to cradle your face in his hands. It was a large contrast to the way he was plowing into the perfect spot, balls deep inside you, making your sounds louder and much more luscious. Even if you wanted to move your legs, or anything else for that matter, the only thing that could really move were your feet, while everything else was held strong against the bed or stuck by his massive body.
Your fingers wrap around his wrists coming in as he gazed into you with an expression that screams “look at me.”
#cod mwii#cod x reader#cod modern warfare#cod mw2#könig x you#könig smut#könig cod#könig imagine#könig#könig fanfiction#könig mw2#könig modern warfare#konig mw2#call of duty mwii#call of duty mw2#mw2#mwii#könig call of duty#könig x reader#call of duty#modern warfare smut#modern warfare two#modern warfare ii
7K notes
·
View notes
Text
Finally getting help (prt 9)
Masterpost
“So where’s the brother?” Jason asked as he followed Bruce down the hall.
“He’s in Tim’s lab. It seems like they’ll be able to share it, which is good even with as big as this place is I don’t think we have room for two mad science labs,” Bruce said with dry humour, making Jason laugh in spite of himself.
“Tim must be thrilled to have a buddy huh?” He asked, still chuckling. No one in this family was stupid by any means, he often felt like the dumb one and objectively he knew he was still a fucking genius. But even with all of them being That smart no one could keep up with Tim’s innovative and scientific mind.
“I think he might even learn a few things, which is a frightening concept. Danny asked for microwaves and toasters this morning so he could cannibalize them into anti-possession tech. The way that boy combines science and magic is going to give both me and Constantine ulcers.”
Jason snorted, both at the joke and maybe a bit out of pleasure that someone was going to be giving Bruce a hard time. “Well if you need a babysitter don’t call me. I don’t want to deal with any of that,” he chuckled.
“Oh absolutely not, you would only feed into the chaos,” Bruce said quickly making Jason cackle, because he was right.
“Alright,” Bruce murmured to himself when they reached the closed door to the lab, it was almost lost in the banging inside but Jason heard it. Heard Bruce bracing himself for whatever was going to happen when Jason and Danny met.
He opened the door and across the room Jason saw who must be Danny. He was prime adoption bait with his black hair and blue eyes, but he was… absolutely beautiful, slight and elven, gently curved and wired with muscle. Jason froze, and it seemed so did Danny, staring at each other from across the room. Butterflies fluttered in Jason’s stomach, building till they didn’t feel like butterflies but something buzzing, trying to get out. He could hear the growl coming from his chest, not his throat.
Danny’s eyes swirled with green and he vaulted over the work table, abandoning the half finished tech he was working on to lunge at Jason. He collided with Jason with a snarl of his own, Jason growled and flipped Danny over his shoulder, the hall was a closed space so Danny twisted, running into the wall feet first and landing in a crouch. Jason twisted so he didn’t have his back to a wall anymore as Danny lunged at him again and Jason dodged, pushing off the wall to give himself momentum as he threw himself after Danny.
Danny grabbed Jason’s arm and used his momentum to throw him over his hip, following him down to the ground, barely missing as Jason rolled away. He didn’t even think to draw a weapon, that wasn’t what this fight was about, they weren’t actually trying to hurt each other. Even as Jason punched down so hard he cracked the floor he somehow knew Danny would dodge, and wouldn’t get hurt. And Danny did, he got out of the way and lashed out in return, kicking Jason in the chest and sending him flying a few feet back giving Danny time to scramble back to his feet and chase after him.
This give and take carried them down the hall and to the landing by the stairs. Somewhere in the background Jason knew that someone was shouting at them to stop, and to be careful, but he wasn’t listening. He was too focussed on the growl emanating from Danny, and from himself which were starting to smooth out again, to feel less like desperate insects trying to escape and more like a cat’s purr, or some sort of song. They were reaching equilibrium, some sort of harmony.
He didn’t realize how close they were to the stairs until Danny knocked him back again and this time when he stepped back he didn’t land on solid ground. The two of them tumbled down the stairs, rapidly switching who was on top as they fell. Jason could feel himself collecting bruises but he didn’t fucking care.
They came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs with Jason on top, his forearm pressed against Danny’s chest just below his throat. They were both breathing hard, staring at each other with wide blue-green eyes. The growling died down, lowering down into purrs harmonizing with each other as they caught their breath. Jason’s was lower and Danny’s a little higher, it was a hypnotic sound that made Jason feel… peaceful.
Danny moved first, reaching up slowly to touch Jason’s face, but before he could Jason realized what they had done and the position he was in. He had fought with Danny, and he was now pinning an abused teenager to the floor straddling his waist. This looked bad and now that he realized what was happening it Felt worse! He practically shot up off of Danny and was about to bolt before Danny grabbed his hand.
“Wait! Don’t go yet! Let me just, let me get you a specter-deflector so no one can possess you first okay?” Danny asked, sounding oddly desperate and even though Jason wanted to run he nodded.
Danny looked relieved and let go of Jason before suddenly flying up and through the floor above them. Jason blinked at the ceiling above him before looking around him.
Oh dear, Bruce, Tim, Damian, and Jazz were all watching from the landing above. Damian looked like he wanted to kill Jason himself, Bruce looked disappointed, Tim impassive and Jazz looked… Excited? Why did she look happy?
Danny flew back down through the floor before anyone could think of what to say. “Okay! Here’s the specter-deflector,” He said, clicking something that looked like a watch into place around Jason’s wrist. “That’ll protect you, this is a blaster,” he said, handing Jason an odd sci-fi looking gun. “It’ll reload automatically from ambient ectoplasm, it works best against dead and undead but it can hurt humans too. And.. um, this is my number,” He said, blushing furiously as he handed Jason a slip of paper. “Please text me?”
When had Jason’s mouth gotten so dry?! He had to lick his lips before he answered, painfully aware of how hot his cheeks were and that he must be blushing too. He didn’t blush much, not since his death and resurrection, but he was absolutely blushing now, and he was still purring too if more softly now. He didn’t even know that he could purr, not really. “Ya, Yes, I’ll text you,” he promised before he fled the house. He would have to have some of Alfred’s lasagna later, just then he desperately needed to calm down and clear his head.
-----
Jazz was practically vibrating with excitement and as soon as the door had closed behind Jason she couldn’t contain it anymore. She squealed as she vaulted over the railing of the landing and landed in the foyer and sprinting over to Danny. “Danny what the heck! You have a crush?! I haven’t seen you that passionate in ages!” She enthused scooping Danny up under his arms and twirling him around.
“Jaaazz,” Danny complained even as he went kitten limp in her arms letting her hold him at arms length nearly a foot off the floor.
“I didn’t even know you liked boys! Why didn’t you tell me you like boys!?” Jazz demanded, shaking him a little.
“I didn’t really, I mean I always preferred girls. The only guy I ever really had a crush on was Dash and-” He cut off when Jazz made a disgusted face. “Exactly! That was never going to happen and he was an asshole so I didn’t want to talk about it!”
“Okay ya I understand- Wait you were making fun of me for having a thing for bad boys when your type is asshole meathead jocks!? Ohhh you’re never going to hear the end of this baby brother!”
“Oh my god No!” Danny groaned, finally squirming out of Jazz’s hold and dropping back to the ground stepping back.
He turned towards the Wayne’s who had made their way down the stairs while the siblings were talking. “Is Jason an asshole?” He demands of Tim, he’s probably the fairest judge in Danny’s estimation.
“Absolutely,” Tim said promptly before realizing what he said and backtracking a little. “But I’m his brother, I'm supposed to say that. Jason’s heart is in the right place, he's a good guy, just kinda violent and a complete jerk,” Tim said.
“Perfect,” Danny said his expression a little dreamy.
“Why on earth would you have a crush on Todd?! You could do so much better!” Damian squawked indignantly, breaking the tension and making everyone besides Bruce laugh, and even he smiled just a little.
“I want to say you did well Bruce, I know it was hard not to break up the fight but so? It was good for them, I hope it won’t be too hard on you if they do end up dating,” Jazz said, patting Bruce’s arm.
He shifted from one foot to the other a little awkwardly but then shook his head. “No it won’t be, I mean it won’t be the first time, Barbra was as good as my daughter and she dated Dick, and Steph and Tim dated. It’s always a little awkward but I’d rather that than a Super,” He said, shooting Tim a look, he cleared his throat and looked away.
“Well good, we’ll see how this works out but really,” she turned back towards Danny. “This could be good! You’ve always been attracted to violent people but I don’t think that your ghost instincts realized that when Val was shooting at you it wasn’t bonding for her the same way it was for you,” she told him, her tone borderline accusatory.
Danny looked down and shifted from side to side, giving a little shrug. “I know, but she was a good girlfriend, when she wasn’t being Red Huntress and I wasn’t being Phantom. When we were just Danny and Val, it was good.”
“Oh Danny,” She sighed and pulled him into a hug. “I know, but he has the same instincts as you, I’m rooting for you Danny.”
“Thanks Jazz,” Danny said softly, hugging her back.
“Welp, I’m heading back to the lab,” Tim said, obviously uncomfortable with the genuine emotions he made a break for it before he could get roped into any hugs.
Next
#danny phantom#dc x dp#fanfiction#dead on main#jason todd#finally getting help au#Danny is pregnant#trans!Danny#vlad is a creep#bruce wayne#jazz fenton#damian wayne#tim drake#multi part fic#long post#unedited#let me know if you find any mistakes
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
An essay on Furiosa, the politics of the Wasteland, Arthurian literature and realistic vs. formalistic CGI
Mad Max: Fury Road absolutely enraptured me when it came out nearly a decade ago, and I will cop to seeing it four times at the theatre. For me (and many others who saw the light of George Miller) it set new standards for action filmmaking, storytelling and worldbuilding, and I could pop in its Blu Ray at any time and never get tired of it. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was deeply apprehensive about the announced prequel for Fury Road's actual main character, Furiosa, even if Miller was still writing and directing. We didn't need backstory for Furiosa—hell, Fury Road is told in such a way that NOTHING in it requires explicit backstory. And since it focuses on the Yung Furiosa, it meant Charlize Theron couldn't return with another career-defining performance. Plus, look at all that CGI in the trailer, it can't be as good as Fury Road.
Turns out I was silly to doubt George Miller, M.D., A.O., writer and director of Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet One & Two.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is excellent, and I needn't have worried about it not being as good as Fury Road because it is not remotely trying to be Fury Road. Fury Road is a lean, mean machine with no fat on it, nothing extraneous, operating with constant forward momentum and only occasionally letting up to let you breathe a little; Furiosa is a classical epic, sprawling in scope, scale and structure, and more than happy to let the audience simmer in a quiet, almost painfully still moment. If its opening spoken word sequence by that Gandalf of the Wastes himself, the First History Man, didn't already clue you in, it unfolds like something out of myth, a tale told over and over again and whose possible embellishments are called attention to in the dialogue itself. Where Fury Road scratched the action nerd itch in my head like you wouldn't believe, Furiosa was the equivalent of Miller giving the undulating folds of my English major brain a deep tissue massage. That's great! I, for one, love when sequels/prequels endeavour to be fundamentally different movies from what they're succeeding/preceding, operating in different modes, formats and even genres, and more filmmakers should aim for it when building on an existing series.
This movie has been on my mind so much in the past week that I've ended up dedicating several cognitive processes to keeping track of all of the different ponderings it's spawned. Thankfully, Furiosa is divided into chapters (fun fact: putting chapter cards in your movie is a quick way to my heart), so it only seems fitting that I break up all of these cascading thoughts accordingly.
1. The Pole of Inaccessibility
Furiosa herself actually isn't the protagonist for the first chapter of her own movie, instead occupying the role of a (very crafty and resourceful) damsel in distress for those initial 30-40 minutes. The real hero of the opening act, which plays out like a game of cat and mouse, is Furiosa's mother Mary Jabassa, who rides out into the wasteland first on horseback and then astride a motorcycle to track down the band of raiders that has stolen away her daughter. Mary's brought to life by Miller and Nico Lathouris' economical writing and a magnetic performance by newcomer Charlee Fraser, who radiates so much screen presence in such relatively little time and with one of those instant "who is SHE??" faces. She doesn't have many lines, but who needs them when Fraser can convey volumes about Mary with just a flash of her eyes or the effortless way she swaps out one of her motorcycle's wheels for another. To be quite candid, I'm not sure of the last time I fell in love with a character so quickly.
You notice a neat aesthetic contrast between mother and daughter in retrospect: Mary Jabassa darts into the desert barefoot, clad in a simple yet elegant dress, her wolf cut immaculate, only briefly disguising herself with the ugly armour of a raider she just sniped, and when she attacks it's almost with grace, like some Greek goddess set loose in the post-apocalyptic Aussie outback with just her wits and a bolt-action rifle; we track Furiosa's growth over the years by how much of her initially conventional beauty she has shed, quite literally in one case (hair buzzed, severed arm augmented with a chunky mechanical prosthesis, smeared in grease and dirt from head to toe, growling her lines at a lower octave), and by how she loses her mother's graceful approach to movement and violence, eventually carrying herself like a blunt instrument. Yet I have zero doubt the former raised the latter, both angels of different feathers but with the same steel and resolve. Of fucking course this woman is Furiosa's mother, and in the short time we know her we quickly understand exactly why Furiosa has the drive and morals she does without needing to resort to didactic exposition.
Anyway, I was tearing up by the end of the first chapter. Great start!
2. Lessons from the Wasteland
Most movies—most stories, really—don't actually tell the entire narrative from A to Z. Perhaps the real meat of the thing is found from H to T, and A-G or U-Z are unnecessary for conveying the key narrative and themes. So many prequels fail by insisting on telling the A-G part of the story, explaining how the hero earned a certain nickname or met their memorable sidekick—but if that stuff was actually interesting, they likely would have included it in the original work. The greatest thing a prequel can actually do is recontextualize, putting iconic characters or moments in a new light, allowing you to appreciate them from a different angle. All of season 2 of Fargo serves to explain why Molly Solverson's dad is appropriately wary when Lorne Malvo enters his diner for a SINGLE SCENE in the show's first season. David's arc from the Alien prequels Prometheus and Covenant—polarizing as those entries are—adds another layer to why Ash is so protective of the creature in the first movie. Andor gives you a sense of what it's like for a normal, non-Jedi person to live under the boot of the Empire and why so many of them would join up with the Rebel Alliance—or why they would desire to wear that boot, or even just crave the chance to lick it.
Furiosa is one of those rare great prequels because it makes us take a step back and consider the established world with a little more nuance, even if it's still all so absurd. In Fury Road, Immortan Joe is an awesome, endlessly quotable villain, completely irredeemable, and basically a cartoon. He works perfectly as the antagonist of that breakneck, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote-ass movie, but if you step outside of its adrenaline-pumping narrative for even a moment you risk questioning why nobody in the Citadel or its surrounding settlements has risen up against him before. Hell, why would Furiosa even work for him to begin with? But then you see Dementus and company tear-assing around the wasteland, seizing settlements and running them into the ground, and you realize Joe and his consortium offer something that Dementus reasonably can't: stability—granted, an unwavering, unchangeable stability weighted in favour of Joe's own brutal caste system, but stability nonetheless. It really makes you wonder, how badly does a guy have to suck to make IMMORTAN JOE of all people look like a sane, competent and reasonable ruler by comparison?!?
…and then they open the door to the vault where he keeps his wives, and in a flash you're reminded just how awful Joe is and why Furiosa will risk her life to help some of these women flee from him years later. This new context enriches Joe and makes it more believable that he could maintain power for so long, but it doesn't make him any less of a monster, and it says a lot about Furiosa's hate for Dementus that she could grit her teeth and work for this sick old tyrant.
3. The Stowaway
Here's another wild bit of trivia about this movie: you don't actually see top-billed actress Anya Taylor-Joy pop up on screen until roughly halfway through, once Furiosa is in her late teens/early twenties. Up until this point she's been played by Alyla Browne, who through the use of some seamless and honestly really impressive CGI has been given Anya's distinctive bug eyes [complimentary]. It's one of those bold choices that really works because Miller commits to it so hard, though it does make me wish Browne's name was up on the poster next to Taylor-Joy's.
Speaking of CGI, I should talk about what seems to be a sticking point for quite a few people: if there's been one consistent criticism of Furiosa so far, it's that it doesn't look nearly as practical or grounded as Fury Road, with more obvious greenscreen and compositing, and what previously would've been physical stunt performers and pyrotechnics have been replaced with their digital equivalents for many shots. Simply put, it doesn't look as real! For a lot of people, that practicality was one of Fury Road's primary draws, so I won't try to quibble if they're let down by Furiosa's overt artificiality, but to be honest I'm actually quite fine with it. It helps that this visual discrepancy doesn't sneak up on you but is incredibly apparent right from the aerial zoom-down into Australia in the very first scene, so I didn't feel misled or duped.
Fury Road never asks you to suspend your disbelief because it all looks so believable; Furiosa jovially prods you to suspend that disbelief from the get-go and tune into it on a different wavelength. It's a classical epic, and like the classical epics of the 1950s and 60s it has a lot of actors standing in front of what clearly are matte paintings. It feels right! We're not watching fact, we're watching myth. I'm willing to concede there might be a little bit of post-hoc rationalization on my part because I simply love this movie so much, but I'm not holding the effects in Furiosa to the same standard as those in Fury Road because I simply don't believe Miller and his crew are attempting to replicate that approach. Without the extensive CGI, we don't get that impressive long, panning take where a stranded Furiosa scans the empty, dust-and-sun-scoured wasteland (75% Sergio Leone, 25% Andrei Tarkovsky), or the Octoboss and his parasailing goons. For the sake of intellectual exercise I did try imagining them filming the Octoboss/war rig sequence with the same immersive practical approach they used for Fury Road's stunts, however I just kept picturing dead stunt performers, so perhaps the tradeoff was worth it!
4. Homeward
Around the same time we meet the Taylor-Joy-pilled Furiosa in Chapter 3, we're introduced to Praetorian Jack, the chief driver for the convoys running between the Citadel and its allied settlements. Jack's played by Tom Burke, who pulled off a very good Orson Welles in Mank! and who I should really check out in The Souvenir one of these days. He's also a cool dude! Here are some facts about Praetorian Jack:
He's decked out in road leathers with a pauldron stitched to one shoulder
He's stoic and wary, but still more or less personable and can carry on a conversation
Professes to a certain cynicism, to quote Special Agent Albert Rosenfield, but ultimately has a capacity for kindness and will do the right thing
Shoots a gun real good
Can drive like nobody's business
So in other words, Jack is Mad Max. But also, no, he clearly isn't! He looks and dresses like Mad Max (particularly Mel Gibson's) and does a lot of the same things "Mad" Max Rockatansky does, but he's also very explicitly a distinct character. It's a choice that seems inexplicable and perhaps even lazy on its face, except this is a George Miller movie, so of course this parallel is extremely purposeful. Miller has gone on record saying he avoids any kind of strict chronology or continuity for his Mad Max movies, compared to the rigid canons for Star Trek and Star Wars, and bless him for doing so. It's more fun viewing each Mad Max entry as a new revision or elaboration on a story being told again and again generations after the fall, mutating in style, structure and focus with every iteration, becoming less grounded as its core narrative is passed from elder to youth, community to community, genre to genre, until it becomes myth. (At least, my English major brain thinks it's more fun.) In fact there's actually something Arthurian to it, where at first King Arthur was mentioned in several Welsh legends before Geoffrey of Monmouth crafted an actual narrative around him, then Chrétien de Troyes added elements like Lancelot and infused the stories with more romance, and then with Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory whipped the whole cycle together into one volume, which T.H. White would chop and screw and deconstruct with The Once and Future King centuries later.
All this to say: maybe Praetorian Jack looks and sounds and acts like Max because he sorta kinda basically is, being just one of many men driving back and forth across the wasteland, lending a hand on occasion, who'll be conflated into a single, legendary "Mad Max" at some point down the line in a different History Man's retelling of Furiosa's odyssey. Sometimes that Max rips across the desert in his V8 Interceptor, other times driving a big rig. Perhaps there's a dog tagging along and/or a scraggly and at first aggravating ally played by Bruce Spence or Nicholas Hoult. Usually he has a shotgun. But so long as you aren't trying to kill him, he'll help you out.
5. Beyond Vengeance
The Mad Max movies have incredibly iconic villains—Immortan Joe! Toecutter! the Lord Humongous!—but they are exactly that, capital V Villains devoid of humanizing qualities who you can't wait to watch bad things happen to. Furiosa appears to continue this trend by giving us a villain who in fact has a mustache long enough that he could reasonably twirl it if he so wanted, but ironically Dementus ends up being the most layered antagonist in the entire series, even moreso than the late Tina Turner's comparatively benevolent Aunty Entity from Beyond Thunderdome. And because he's played by Chris Hemsworth, whose comedic delivery rivals his stupidly handsome looks, you lock in every time he's on screen.
Something so fascinating about Dementus is that, for a main antagonist, he's NOT all-powerful, and in fact quite the opposite: he's more conman than warlord, looking for the next hustle, the next gullible crowd he can preach to and dupe—though never for long. For all his bluster, at every turn he finds himself in way over his head and writing cheques he can't cash, and this self-induced Sisyphean torment makes him riveting to watch. You're tempted to pity Dementus but it's also quite difficult to spare sympathy for someone who's so quick to channel their rage and hurt and ego into thoughtless, burn-it-all-down destruction. When you're not laughing at him, you're hating his guts, and it's indisputably the best work of Chris Hemsworth's career.
It's in this final chapter that everything naturally comes to a head: Furiosa's final evolution into the character we meet at the start of Fury Road, the predictable toppling of Dementus' precariously built house of cards, and the mythmaking that has been teased since the very first scene becoming diagetic text, the last of which allows the movie to thoroughly explore the themes of vengeance it's been building to. A brief war begins, is summarized and is over in the span of roughly a minute, and on its face it's a baffling narrative choice that most other filmmakers would have botched. But our man Miller's smart enough to recognize that the result of this war is the most foregone of conclusions if you've been paying even the slightest bit of attention, so he effectively brushes past it to get to the emotional heart of the climax and an incredible "Oh shit!" payoff that cements Miller as one of mainstream cinema's greatest sickos.
Fury Road remains the greatest Mad Max film, but Furiosa might be the best thing George Miller has ever made. If not his magnum opus, it does at least feel like his dissertation, and it makes me wish Warner Bros. puts enough trust in him despite Furiosa's poor box office performance that he's able to make The Wasteland. Absolutely ridiculous that a man just short of his 80th birthday was able to pull this off, and with it I feel confident calling him one of my favourite directors.
#furiosa: a mad max saga#mad max#mad max: Fury road#furiosa#imperator furiosa#george miller#mary jabassa#dementus#praetorian jack#immortan joe#max rockatansky#analysis#essay#anya taylor-joy#chris hemsworth#charlee fraser#tom burke#charlize theron#continuity#canon#arthurian literature#arthurian mythology#the matter of britain#king arthur#alyla browne
848 notes
·
View notes
Text
NaNoWriMo Day 21 — First and Final Entry
Word goal for today: 35,000
Words written: 491
Current total: 32,521
Progress: 65.0% ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇
#alright i might be losing momentum a bit (or a lot)#i didn't sleep too well and was super tired all day long#the first draft of this book is really starting to turn out to be a difficult birth#since i only had the idea for it in mid-october i didn't have ample time for world-building which normally doesn't hold me back too much#but in this case it's really making writing difficult#at this point i'm looking forward to the end (of nano) and the start of revisions 🙈#nanowrimo 2022#jengnanos
0 notes